How to Save $37,000+ Per Year on College Tuition with Seth Greene – EP 257

September 25, 2025

Interview with Seth Greene

How to Save $37,000+ Per Year on College Tuition with Seth Greene

College tuition is one of the biggest financial burdens families face. Sticker prices are outrageous, financial aid feels confusing, and many parents resign themselves to paying full price—or worse, watching their kids drown in student debt.

What if you could legally and strategically cut tens of thousands of dollars off your child’s tuition bill every single year?

That’s exactly what Seth Greene helps parents do. Seth is the founder of one of the first and top college financial aid negotiation firms in the U.S., a financial strategist, and co-host of the SharkPreneur podcast. His firm helps families save an average of $37,000–$70,000 per year per child on college education.

In this episode, Seth breaks down the “gameable” formula that determines how much the government thinks you can afford, the biggest mistakes families make when applying for aid, and the powerful negotiation strategies that colleges don’t want you to know.

By the end, you’ll walk away with actionable insights that could save you six figures per child—freeing up money to invest, grow, and build the lifestyle you really want.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

✅ The single most important number in college financial aid—and how to legally “game” it to qualify for more free money.

✅ The costly mistakes parents make when applying for aid (like misreporting assets or overvaluing a business)—and how to avoid them.

✅ Why private schools can often be cheaper than state schools, and how to use multiple offers as leverage to negotiate more aid.

Featured on This Episode: Seth Greene

✅ What he does: Seth Greene is the founder of one of the nation’s top college financial aid negotiation firms. His firm helps families cut college costs by tens of thousands per year by legally optimizing aid applications and negotiating with schools. He’s also the co-host of the SharkPreneur podcast and a nationally recognized financial strategist.

💬 Words of wisdom: “My oldest goes off to Cornell University in a couple of weeks. $95,000 a year retail sticker price. We’re not paying $95,000 a year. And you shouldn’t either.” – Seth Greene

🔎 Where to find Seth Greene: LinkedIn | Sharkpreneur Podcast

Key Takeaways with Seth Greene

  • From Broadway Dreams to College Financial Aid Expert
  • Launching One of the First College Aid Negotiation Firms
  • The #1 Number That Decides Your College Aid Package
  • Why Accepting the First Offer Costs Families Thousands
  • Private vs. Public Colleges: Hidden Cost Secrets Revealed
  • How to Use Competing Offers to Get More College Aid
  • Million-Dollar Mistakes Parents Make on College Forms
  • How Biden’s Bill Changed College Aid for Business Owners
  • FAFSA vs. CSS Profile: Why Your Answers Must Match
  • Why Timing Your FAFSA Application Matters More Than You Think
  • How Seth’s Firm Saves Families $37,000+ Per Year on Tuition
  • Why Families Should Start College Aid Planning by Sophomore Year
  • Free Training: How to Find Money for College

How the Big Beautiful Bill Changes Student Loans

Inspiring Quotes

  • “Just accepting the first offer is usually a big mistake.” – Seth Greene
  • “Those private schools have multi-billion dollar endowment funds to give away.” – Seth Greene
  • “Financial aid is first-come, first-served. You’ll get more money if you do it first. It’s like watching Justin Timberlake concert tickets disappear.” – Seth Greene
  • “I wish I existed when I went to school. I could’ve saved my parents’ money.” – Seth Greene

Resources

Want My Team’s Help?

  • Tax Strategy Masterclass
     Learn the 28 most effective tax strategies the wealthy use to save thousands.
    lifestyleinvestor.com/tax

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Read the Full Transcript with Seth Greene

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Justin Donald: What's up, Seth? Welcome to the show.

Seth Greene: Thank you so much, Justin. I am a big fan. I'm super excited to be here.

Justin Donald: Well, it's an honor to have you on after I've been on your show a couple of times, and at the end of this last session that we had on your show, we started talking about some of the cool stuff you're up to in kind of the financial aid world, helping students. And I feel like this is such an applicable message for our audience. We have so many people that have kids, many of which are in college right now, or about to go in college, or in a handful of years will be college-ready. So, I am just curious with all that you've done, you've got a big-name podcast with the SharkPreneur, and then you've got a handful of other things you've done. How did you get into the world of financial aid and helping college students financially?

Seth Greene: Sure. So, the short version is I went to Syracuse University for undergrad a few decades ago. And I went for musical theater because at the time, at the age of 18, I wanted to be a Broadway star. That was my life goal. And my parents were nice enough to let me do it at Syracuse tuition prices.

Justin Donald: That's nice.

Seth Greene: Well, they said I had to have a backup plan, which I did. Syracuse had a top 25 business school. So, first semester, day before Thanksgiving break, I'm packing my duffel bag to go home for the first time and my dad calls. He says, "Son, you can't stay there,” and I said, “I know. No one's going to be here over break. I'll be home at Josh's. My older brother's coming to pick me up. I'll be home in a couple of hours.” He said, "No, you can't stay at Syracuse. You have to come home. Go to SUNY Buffalo, live at home, get a job, and work part-time. You have to help your mother around the house. You have to do chores. There's no loud music after 9:00 PM, and there's no girls over, but I'll see you for Thanksgiving dinner.” And he hung up on me.

Justin Donald: Oh, my goodness.

Seth Greene: I called my mother in tears going, "Mom, I've only been here a couple of months. I love it. What is dad talking about?” And she said, "He got the tuition bill. He is freaking out. But we'll see you soon, and we'll figure it out.” So, I went home crying in the car to my brother like, "Am I going to have to transfer? Is this the last time I'm going to see this school that I love? I don't understand.” And thankfully, they figured it out, but every single semester, my dad got a tuition bill and would make the same phone call.

Justin Donald: Oh, man.

Seth Greene: And I stopped getting stressed out because I'm like, "Dad's just freaking out. He's not actually going to pull me from school.” So, by the time I graduated, I did finish my theater degree, but I also decided to create a program that didn't exist at the time, which is the late 90s in college financial aid. I said, "There's got to be a better way to solve this problem.” And I started one of the first and still top several college financial aid negotiation firms in the country.

Justin Donald: And by the way, I never even knew this was a thing. I wish when I went to college I knew this was a thing because, for whatever reason, my parents didn't make a lot of money, but we just missed financial aid every single time, and they couldn't afford school. I paid for my school, and luckily, I did very well while I was in college, but that was all money out of pocket. And it was a lot.

Seth Greene: Yeah, absolutely. Most people don't know it's a thing. We're trying to change that, obviously. And the marketing that propelled that firm to be a nationwide firm is what led to that SharkPreneur podcast that you've been on multiple times. But, yeah, we're here today to talk about how we help parents cut the cost of college tuition, $37,070 per year per kid, and how they can do the same thing.

Justin Donald: Yeah. That’s your average savings for your clients, which is unbelievable. Okay. So, what is the most important number for college financial aid? If we had to boil it down to one thing, what is it?

Seth Greene: Sure. So, the most important number is used to be called the EFC, the expected family contribution. Thanks to a couple of different law changes, it is now the Student Aid Index or SAI. So, if you hear it referred to EFC, SAI, it means the same thing. It's the number that the federal government thinks you can afford to pay for college. And it's always way more than you think you can afford to pay for college. And the reason why that number is so important is because it is gameable depending on your situation. But for a lot of the folks who follow what you teach at the Lifestyle Investor, that number's gameable and, literally, you can, through the use of the formula, make yourself qualify for more free money.

Justin Donald: I love that. So, before we get into how to do it right, what are the biggest mistakes that you consistently see applicants making?

Seth Greene: So, there's a lot. We have time to go into a few here. So, number one is just accepting whatever offer the school gives you and thinking, “That's what I get,” thinking that negotiation is based on emotion. Like, when parents do try and negotiate, they call and it's mom stereotypically calling, going, "My baby wants to go here. Please give my baby more money.” And the financial aid officers are trained to deal with emotional parents. So, they're trained to not just give you money because you're crying or you're upset. So, that doesn't work. Just accepting the first offer is usually a big mistake. And parents don't look at what the schools will pay before they let their kid apply. So, my oldest goes off to Cornell University in a couple of weeks in August from whenever we're going to air this.

Justin Donald: Another expensive school, mind you.

Seth Greene: Very. Yeah. Ivy League, 95,000-a-year retail sticker price. We're not paying 95,000 a year. And you shouldn't either. So, you’ve got to look at the other most important number. We got to know what our EFC or SAI is, and then we got to know let's take that retail sticker price for the school and then determine what percentage of your financial need does the school meet. So, the formula is retail sticker price minus EFC or SAI equals financial need. What percentage of your gap will that school meet? Now, some schools say they meet 100% of it, and then that splits into gift aid, free money, and self-help, which is loans. They count loans as aid, which drives me crazy. But if they say they meet 100% of your need, but it's 50% loans, 50% free money, that's not really meeting 100% of your need. It's great for marketing, but it's not actually true.

Now, there are schools that will literally meet 100% of your need, and it might be 97% free money, 3% loans, which is a much better ratio. So, when my daughter, she's 16 right now, she's heading into her junior year in September. She is busy making her wish list of schools. She just saw her brother go through this. So, she's learned a whole lot of lessons watching him put a lot of his eggs in the Cornell basket and now she's going, "Dad, can you run numbers on this school? Can you run numbers on this school? And tell me,” because she's trying to stay within what we said we would pay for. She's trying to avoid graduating with a whole ton of debt, which is very smart.

So, you got to know before the kid even starts going, “Ooh, I want to go there because they got a great sports team,” or, “I want to go there because it's a party school. I want to go there because they have my major,” it's, "How much is it actually going to cost me out of pocket? Can I change that number? Am I eligible to manipulate that system to get any free money?” And if you've got kids who are remotely considering grad school, you've got to think about which matters more. So, for example, I had a kid who came in heart stuck on NYU for undergrad, got to go to NYU, and NYU, also very expensive and notoriously stingy when it comes to giving away money.

My daughter, it’s one of her dream schools, and I've slowly pushed her to consider other things because they are very stingy. And so, I tell him how much it's going to cost, he's going to graduate with this much debt no matter what we do, blah, blah, blah. Ends up going to NYU, and then I find out later that he wants to go to law school. And I said, "Dear Lord, why did we blow our money on NYU for undergrad when what matters more if you're going to be a lawyer is where you went to law school. You could have gone to a much cheaper undergraduate education and then gone to a marquee law school that would help you get hired better.”

Justin Donald: Yeah. That's smart. By the way, is there a way to know, and maybe you have all this data, and this is why people should work with you, but is there a way to know with the schools that fill that gap, what percentage is true grant money, and what percentage is loaned money?

Seth Greene: So, we do have a database.

Justin Donald: Or it’s situational?

Seth Greene: Yeah. Well, yes and no. So, what percentage they meet and what percentage of need met should be public information? Now, how that splits between grant and self-help money is also public, which you got to do a lot of digging to find it. It's not just on the financial aid page of the college's website. So, we've got a database of pretty much every school in the country and what those numbers are so that when our clients start like sophomore, junior year of high school, start thinking about college, we're informing those choices by, “Hey, that's great that that's your major and that school's number one in the country for your major, but they're not going to give you any money. Maybe number two or number three will be way more generous.”

Or we have parents who come in going, “I went to a public state school. I'm budgeted for that. That's where my kid's going.” And we'll say, "What if he could go to a private school for the same price or for less?” And they’re like, "Well, how is that possible?” I'm like, "Well, those private schools have multi-billion dollar endowment funds to give away.” If we look at that, number one, I always want private schools on the application list because even if I'd never wanted to go, I could use that offer as leverage.

Justin Donald: That's right.

Seth Greene: And now, schools will say, "We don't match offers,” but if you say, "Listen, you're offering me X. This school is offering me Y. I know you don't match offers, but we really want to come to you and you do it right,” magically they can find more money.

Justin Donald: Yeah. No surprise there. It's the same thing I do with getting multiple banks competing for loans, right? They say that they won't match. They say there's no competition, but the moment you bring them a legit offer, they will match or beat it. It's just the nature of the game. They don't want to lose the business, especially when you are this close. So, you recently saved two clients from million dollar financial aid mistakes. I'd love for you to share a little bit about those stories.

Seth Greene: Sure. So, it's funny that they happened right around the same time. These were clients who said, “Hey, we appreciate that you gave us the analysis of what it's going to cost and told us whether you can move the needle or not.” One was, "We're going to do it on our own. We're not going to spend the money to hire you and your firm, even though it looks like a fantastic ROI. We're just going to do it because we had another kid go through school, and I'm confident I can fill out the forms.” The other one was someone whose kid was already in school. Now, this is like a Hail Mary pass. Normally, we get one or two a year where the kid's already a freshman or sophomore in college, and they're paying retail sticker price, and they've already paid cash. Usually, their financial advisor refers them to us and goes, "Is there anything you can do?” I know they already paid.

And in both of these instances, they both made the exact same mistake. Actually, they made two different mistakes. One reported a retirement investment asset worth over a million dollars on the financial aid forms, not knowing that certain types of, not all, but certain types of retirement assets, don't count. So, we had to appeal to the school and say, "Shouldn't have reported that million dollars. I'm now worth $1 million less on paper. I now qualify for more free money.” The other family, I'm looking at their financial aid forms that they already filled out, and I'm saying, “Where do these assets of 2 million, whatever, come from?” And he says, "Oh, that's the value of my business.”

And I said, "How did you come up with the valuation?” He said, "Well, we had someone who was willing to buy it six months ago, and that was the offer they gave us.” And I said, "Did the transaction close? Did they buy the business?” And he said, "No.” “Then it's not worth $2 million. It's only worth it if someone actually wrote you a check. They didn't write you a check. That offer's not worth anything. We can now figure out the true value of the business, which is much less than $2 million, and save you a ton of money.” So, at that point in time, before the Big Beautiful Bill passed, you had to count the value of your small business against you. And the valuation was physical assets minus physical liabilities.

So, he didn't own the building he was in. There's office furniture, some computers, and the money in the bank. Minus what he owes, his business value was like millions of dollars less. So, all of a sudden, he's worth less on paper, and he gets more free money. Now, the great news is since the Big Beautiful Bill passed, regardless of whether you're pro or con of the Big Beautiful Bill, there were about, we've got a report we're finishing now of 17 pages of college financial aid changes because of the Big Beautiful Bill. And the most important one was President Biden, a number of years ago, got rid of something called the small business exclusion, which used to be if you owned a small business or a farm with a hundred or less employees, the value didn't count against you for financial aid because the government knew it wasn't a piggy bank. You can't just pull money out.

Biden got rid of that, and every single one of us, politics aside, I'm not here to tell you who to vote for. I'm just telling you financial aid-wise, when Biden closed that exclusion, all of our business values suddenly counted against us for financial aid, and we looked way richer on paper. Thankfully, in the Big Beautiful Bill, they put that exclusion back. So, the government came to their senses, and we will now all save a whole bunch of money on college.

Justin Donald: Yeah. And it's the same thing as unrealized capital gains, right? It's like, how do you tax unrealized capital gains? Same thing here. You've got money tied up in a business that you have no interest in selling. Like, that should not go against you. Are there other things from the Big Beautiful Bill that have had a positive impact for those going to college these days?

Seth Greene: There's all kinds of changes to what loans you can take out, how much you can borrow, when they have to be repaid back, what the interest rates currently are. Yes, that's literally why we're on page 16 or 17, almost done with that report of all of the changes.

Justin Donald: Wow. I'd love to see that. That sounds awesome. What a great piece to be able to bring to your customers.

Seth Greene: Well, thank you. We are actually doing a training on all of the changes from the Big Beautiful Bill, how to make yourself qualify for more money on paper, and the five biggest admissions mistakes, that training that will be available for your folks if you listen or watch the Lifestyle Investor podcast. And when this airs, you go to HowtoFindMoneyforCollege.com/training you can register and watch. It'll be about 90 minutes because it's a lot of content. We don't sell anything on it. It's purely educational, and your listeners can go check that out.

Justin Donald: That's awesome. I love that. So, what are some of the other things that people need to make sure they do correctly when doing this? Obviously, one of them is like, have a top-flight firm like yours, represent them, but are there other things that they should just be aware of or they should know ahead of time?

Seth Greene: I mean, we could spend hours and hours as we're going to on that training, going over all of that. I think something else that's really important is when you fill out the financial aid forms, if you do it yourself, the numbers have to match. And what I mean by that is if you're filling out the free application for federal student aid, the FAFSA, and your child is also applying to private or profile schools, they have to fill out a separate form called the CSS profile. You need to do them ideally at the same time or write down your answers so they're the same. We've seen who filled out the FAFSA, which you can submit October 1st of your child senior year at 9:00 AM. So, do it at 9:00 AM. Don't wait a couple of months.

Financial aid is first-come, first-served. You'll get more money if you do it first. It's like watching Justin Timberlake concert tickets disappear. But we've seen people who filled out the form this day, and then they filled out the CSS a couple of weeks later. Well, the stock market moved. And I know you tell people to be in more stable and more predictable investments than that, but if they've got a chunk of their assets in a stock market variable account or in money that fluctuates, and their answers change and they don't match, the system will think it's an error. It'll automatically reject it. It'll send it back to you to fix, and it'll put you at the bottom of the pile when you come back, and you'll lose out on money. So, either do them at the same time or write down your answers so they match.

Justin Donald: That's good. That's really good. And what does it look like for those that want to hire your company, Seth? This sounds like a great idea. It sounds like you pay for yourselves many times over.

Seth Greene: Absolutely. So, thank you for the question. So, the first step is to find out where you are, right? We got to start at the beginning. So, we normally charge $197 for a college cost analysis where we crunch all the numbers, we go through all your statements, your tax returns, everything, and we tell you what you're looking at for your child, number one; number two, dream school if you change nothing. Then we tell you, can we help you move the needle? And if so, how much money can we save you? So, because your folks came from the Lifestyle Investor, that $197 fee is waived. We’ll do it for them for nothing. It'll cost nothing. They will find out and if we cannot move the needle, we'll tell them.

We'll say, “Hey, there's nothing we can do for you, financial aid-wise. Do you want to have an admissions conversation about how to help your child position themselves to get in and get merit money?” Because there's two types of financial aid. There's need based, which is gameable. And then there's merit money based on SAT scores, extracurriculars, all the student stuff, which is subjective. Right? How does the admissions committee feel about your kid that day? And how do they compare to all the other kids who applied? We just found out this was the hardest year, in 2025 was the hardest year for college admissions ever in history because there were more kids born in ‘07. There was almost a baby boom during the recession.

When the subprime bubble burst, there were more kids born that year who applied to top-flight schools. Like, for example, my son, Max, at Cornell. Cornell broke every previous admissions record of kids applying this year. So, we will tell them if we can help them on the financial aid side, and by how much. We'll tell them if we can't help them, but we can help them on the admission side. And then there's no pressure when we talk to anybody. It's just a question of here's what it looks like to work with us in terms of we'll do all the financial aid forms for you. We'll negotiate for you. We'll handle everything. You don't have to touch it. And then this is what it costs, depends on the complexity of the case versus how much money we're going to save you.

Justin Donald: Well, I wish you existed doing this when I went to school because I have a feeling I would've saved a lot of money.

Seth Greene: I wish I existed when I went to school. I could've saved my parents' money.

Justin Donald: Man, this is so good. Anything else you want to let our audience know before we wrap here? Because this, to me, is so relevant. And for those of you that have kids, like we're still… I love that we're having this conversation. My daughter is 12 and a half, so we still have some time, but now that this is in my head, there's no way I'm going to forget about it. So, it's like, even though this is years off, this is so relevant to us. And I feel like the vast majority of those listening, they have kids.

Seth Greene: Yeah. I would say start early when you get the test results. Not the SAT, the EPT, the pregnancy test, because what you want to think about is if we're going to move money or reposition assets to make you qualify for more money, we've got to have enough time for that to show up on a tax return. So, we need a year or two. So, ideal time to start our version of the process. Should you start saving from day one? Yes. We can talk about what types of accounts that should go into that the Lifestyle Investor would agree with. But we want them sophomore or junior year or high school, so we've got enough time to move stuff around. Senior year, we can't do as much because it won't show in a tax return until they're already a freshman in college.

Justin Donald: Yeah, that's good. That's good. I just think this is so valuable. I love this business.

I love what you're doing for people. I love that you've been able to use it inside your own family. What a cool business and skill, and just a whole world I didn't even know existed.

Seth Greene: I didn't either.

Justin Donald: That is great. So, where can people learn more about you?

Seth Greene: Yes. Okay. So, you either go to HowtoFindMoneyforCollege.com/training to register for the training, and then that will walk you through the whole process. Or we're going to ask that you watch it before you talk to us anyway, so you know what we're talking about. But my email is seth@howtofindmoneyforcollege.com, and just make sure to mention that you came from the Lifestyle Investor.

Justin Donald: Awesome. And how do they get access to that video? What was that website again?

Seth Greene: HowtoFindMoneyforCollege.com/training.

Justin Donald: Love it. This is so awesome. Any last thoughts you have for our audience?

Seth Greene: I think you did a great job asking awesome questions.

Justin Donald: Well, Seth, I appreciate that. I like ending every episode that we do with a question for our audience. So, if you're watching this, if you're listening to this, my question for you is the same every week, but what is one step you can take today to move towards financial freedom and really just move towards living a life that you truly desire on your terms? So, again, it's not a life by default, like most people live, but a life by design. And I just challenge you to take one step here. If you’ve got kids that are about to go to school, take the step. I know Seth. This guy has the ability to save you and your family some money, your kids some money.

This is an easy way towards more financial freedom because the money that you save, I do these examples when I give a keynote where I talk about most people don't do any tax strategy. They just kind of do what their CPA says, and they leave all this money on the table. They basically tip the government. And if you just take those dollars and you can legally find ways to creatively pay less in taxes all by the book, well, those dollars can go into investments that compound and can create millions. And by the way, it's the same with this. It's the same where if you save these dollars on tuition, now, you can put this money to work. You have more money to be able to compound in investments and grow. So, I love what you're up to. Thanks so much! And we'll catch you all next week.

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Justin Donald

Justin Donald

Justin Donald is a leading financial strategist who helps you find your way through the complexities of financial planning. A pioneer in structuring deals and disciplined investment systems, he now consults and advises entrepreneurs and executives on lifestyle investing.

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